'A disgrace': Trump takes fresh aim at Canada's dairy, lumber, energy

'A disgrace': Trump takes fresh aim at Canada's dairy, lumber, energy

U.S. President Donald Trump took fresh aim at Canada on Thursday, but expanded his hit list to beyond dairy to include lumber and energy.

Signing his executive order to probe foreign threats to the U.S. steel industry, the president called his perceived trade imbalance with Canada as “a disgrace.”

“Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers is a disgrace,” he said. “It’s a disgrace. I spent time with several of the farmers in Wisconsin and – as you know – rules, regulations, different things have changed and our farmers in Wisconsin and New York State are being put out of business.”

However, unlike Tuesday’s comments in Wisconsin, Trump broadened his focus to include other Canadian commodities.

“That also includes what’s happening along our northern border states with Canada having to do with lumber and timber. The fact is NAFTA – whether it’s Mexico or Canada – is a disaster for our country.”

The president promised to redress NAFTA in short order as a result.

“It’s a trading disaster and we’ll be reporting back some time over the next two weeks about NAFTA and what we’re going to do about it. But, what happened to our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and New York State: We’re not going to let it happen. We can’t let Canada, or anybody else take advantage and do what they did to our workers and to our farmers.”

“I want to also just mention, included in there is lumber, timber and energy, so we’re going to have to get to the negotiating table with Canada very, very quickly.”

Renowned businessman Charles Bronfman, and co-author of ‘Distilled,’ told BNN that the United States won't doing anything to hurt Canada, because it's not in their best interest.

“I think [Canadian business leaders] have to hang in, they have to be aggressive and I think they have to hold fast because the United States needs Canada and Canada’s resources even more than Canada needs the United States’ market,” he said. "Trump isn’t going to do anything that’s going to hurt Canada, it’s not in the United States’ interest. Period. They need our water, they need our hydro.They need a lot of things that we have that they don’t have.”